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Arthur lifted a bemused eyebrow towards the giant, listening to the vehement outburst patiently. The Norseman spoke after only a brief pause, his voice careful and measured, but certainly no less firm than the armored man's had been. "It's your own fault, then. You are the only one left, but you despise the members of your own species? More accurately, what your species turns into?"
Step's voice took an edge to it then, and he leveled his flat gray eyes at his companion, and while tiny in comparison, the antiques dealer made it clear his displeasure. "That is like hating your grandchildren because they dress differently. Were you never a parent? You should be ashamed."

Jenna regarded the chatterers with ignorance, taking a sip of her over chocolatey drink. Her large demon wings were folded tightly to a frail body; Torn membranes between the 'fingers' and the edges. Her angel wings were too small for movement, and instead hung limply to her sides. Horns that looked to have been broken at some point graced her head. Ears covered in light tan fur were twitching to the sounds, while her half spade bladed tail moved with a slight tense based fidgeting of the edge. She zoned out by staring a the wall ahead, still drinking her drink.

Admittedly, the Man in Gold hadn't thought of being a parent in a very, very long time; he was a little taken aback by Step's comment. He was too surprised to get angry, and the feeling continued to grow; there was someone near, someone who he had...not expected to feel.... He gently shook the glass, swishing the drink around, as he looked down.

"The Terisians and I share a mutual hatred of each other. Rest assured that the innocent, naive man you saw in here a few days ago would have flown into a rage and attacked me had I entered the room when he was here. It all has to do with my home planet and what happened on it. I blame the man who caused the cataclysm, but the Terisians blame me because I was the one who took that man in as a friend. Either way, we've been fighting over this since then, so for over 13,000 years we have been at each other's throats."

He grew quiet again. Deep down, he knew it was stupid to be fighting with the Terisians; but, he couldn't bring himself to admit that their position had any validity to it. Even in his own thoughts, he refused to dwell on what had happened; so, to take his mind off of it all, he had another drink.

Arthur quirked a brow, though his expression did soften slightly. "Really? Thirteen thousand years and you're still fighting over something that probably only you remember? Civilization on this planet is perhaps half that old, and we have fought, forgiven, and fought again more times than can be counted. Even your life is too short to be wrapped up in such bitterness."
Returning to his meal for a moment, Step thought to himself while he chewed, his head cocking to the side just before he tugged upon his ear. "Would you trust me as your representative? To this Relyn?"

Arnes Teranyn was quite dissatisfied with the expedition on Titan. What had been, ostensibly, a search for artifacts had turned into a bitter, seething argument that he was, fortunately, not a part of; still, the other people on the expedition were so busy arguing with each other that it simply wasn't worth the credits to stay any longer. Therefore, he got away from the group for a moment and gathered his personal effects together in his well-worn travel chest and took a portal to somewhere peaceful. The cold vacuum of space was rather peaceful, if deadly, and one could say that the depths of the ocean were peaceful, but again, deadly. Thankfully, Arnes arrived in a parking lot outside of a curious-looking building. He stepped behind a wall to exchange his spacesuit for his usual white brocade travel robe, don his hessian boots, and then walk into the building.

It seemed like a friendly enough place, although there were quite a few strange-looking people in here. His eyes focused on the tall blue man dressed in what appeared to be a suit of adamantine armor with a flaking gold leaf. Interesting. Arnes sat between the armored man and his human companion, giving both a friendly smile.

"Hello, kinsman, Earthling. How goes it?"

Arthur quirked a brow, having to be blind not to see the similarities between the two, though he doubted that they were related. "It goes well, I must say. I have made the acquaintance of your kinsman, though he has not told me his name, and I am learning about how to hold a grudge for longer that the lives of entire species. Hopefully, my friend here won't bash my head in and steal my food for teasing him so."

The Man in Gold gave a violent start, and had he been much younger he would have tackled the newcomer. Instead, he grasped the man by his robe and shook him. There was clearly fear, confusion, and anger all mixed in his expression.

"Who are you? Where did you come from," he inquired in a shaking voice.

This was most unexpected, but not unwelcome. Now, at least, he understood the feelings he had been getting recently.

Arien snorted at her comment of ballads from wolves. "They're probably more beautiful when you're behind four walls and under roof. When they're attacking you, not so much. And yes," he settled back in his chair, "I am self-taught."

His face twitched. "As for how I discovered my ability...let us say that necessity is the mother of invention. And well," he grinned. "I have a bit of a knack for getting into and out of trouble."

Neva blinked at him a moment. He had misunderstood her, but she didn't even realize it. Now she was imagining plant life as predators too. Not that it was unheard of on her planet, they just weren't so persistent. She watched his mouth as he spoke, her newest study subject. Off handedly speaking back to him. "You evolved so that you would be able to survive future confrontations...They thrust us as children into these situations to weed out the weaker ones. You though learned to evolve on your own, you were not aware it could happen. Yet it did." She looked away from his mouth now that it had stopped moving for the moment glancing over his face now, studying the features. Her own hand touching her face where she was looking at on him... comparing the differences, and the similarities. "You are quite interesting."

Maybe it was the way she spoke, or perhaps the words she used; he gathered she really wasn't from around these parts and that she was still getting acclimated.

He watched her, noting that she seemed to watch his mouth more than his face, and that she was almost nervously touching her face like it might wander off somewhere. Or change.

"I don't know about evolved," he said. "But mankind has always had predators and we've learned to defend ourselves. It's nothing new. What kind of situations are you talking about, that you were thrown into as children? Because, my childhood was hardly easy, but that sounds barbaric." At her sudden comment that he was interesting, he might have flushed a little. "Ah, you as well."

Neva stared at him for a bit. "It is the way things were. I was released into the wilds of our moon. I was given little to survive on, in a pack of my then peers. We would be faced with monstrosities, those who developed abilities survived and were rescued at the end of the gauntlet. Then we would hone our abilities when we arrived home." The primitive called her people barbaric and she was a bit taken aback by this. Her own Sibling had thought the same thing once. "It wasn't meant to be easy. But it is a custom which has grown out of fashion. I though feel no need to explain it any further."

"Holy crap, and I thought my father disowning me was bad." The shock was clear on his face, clearly he was unused to such brutality or methods of training. "So you...how many..." he shook his head. "That's just horrible. Not every one knows what their gift or power is, and some of us don't even develop it until later in life. To force them, to make them become something they're not ready to become..." He growled under his breath and took a drink to steady his nerves. "At least they don't do it any longer," he muttered and glanced at her again. "How old were you when you did that?"

Her cold eyes now landed on his as he spoke, his emotions over her people was an odd thing to witness to her. She wasn't used to it and it made her uneasy. He was quite passionate it seemed to her. She studied the shocked look and every word that followed. She wasn't sure how many Earth years equaled a Svorn year, so she answered in her terms. "Ten years, the age one must be to take upon the gauntlet." Her face finally gave way to an almost worried look. She couldn't wrap her head around him being concerned for the young of another species.

"You were ten?" His eyes widened and with an effort he forced himself to calm down. He scowled and cracked his knuckles anxiously. "And I thought twelve was too young." But at the same time, he was curious too. What had it been like? And how had she survived against such odds? It told him a number of things about her: she was resourceful, creative, but also willing to make critical decisions at a moment's notice.

"What kind of ability did you discover you had?" He asked after a moment.

Neva gave a slight nod to confirm that yes she was ten when it had happened. His expressions caused her to tilt her head. She was unsure of him, of his reactions to things that made no one bat an eye on her world. This caused a curiousness within her as well, Though for obviously different reasons. "Leadership." She said at first, not really an ability. "My inborn ability was a psychosis i could will upon my enemy." She decided she would elaborate." We were on Verhorn for months. I had taken the role of leader within our group. Zhall was defiant, and rallied his comrades to join him. While I had set up a strict order among mine. We were like two warring factions in the wilderness, they trying to take what was ours Instead of joining us. Zhall and his comrades starved long before the beasts of Verhorn arrived." She studied his expressions as she continued. "Under my rule, we survived the wilderness itself with no problem. We only lost one to disease. But once they came the order was shattered and we were left to fend for ourselves. Most were slaughtered on day one, I hid in a cave for days like a coward, when a pack of them had found me, I was... not brave. I went into a sort of shock at the thought of dying, and I asked the universe to give me the strength. I willed them to tear each other apart." She looked at him, reliving the moment. "It was then they turned to one another, mauling each other. It was I who emerged from the cave."

He listened with rapt attention, nodding in the appropriate places and grimacing at the others. His face went blank when she described her ordeal of living in the caves and of ordering the others to tear themselves apart. And yet, not once did he ever look accusingly at her.

"Wow," he said after a long pause. "That would be hell for anyone." He couldn't help but be sympathetic. "It's only natural to want to preserve your life; the only other option is to have no regard for it at all and that's the more dangerous option." He scanned her face. "For what it's worth, I think you still value life. You had to make a tough decision and you chose the most important one: yourself. I'm glad for that otherwise we never would have met."

Neva broke eye contact with Arien after her story. She wasn't expecting him to understand. He was quiet for a good while, she began studying to peanuts in the bowl again. curiously eyeing its shape.

Once he spoke to her she looked him over again, his rationalizing it unnecessary, and his sympathy still so odd. "Life is valuable. But one must do, what one must. I'd have expected them to do the same had it been another way." He was glad he met her, the way he said it. "You have not been unpleasant to discover, yourself. I'm glad you out witted the wolf beasts." She was as stoic as ever.

Neva went back into her thoughts for a moment, she had never actually met a primitive before hand. She wasn't sure why he gave her sympathy, it was such a foreign thing to her, but somehow his mind could relate in some way with her. She wasn't sure if she was impressed or if she was bothered by this.

Arien attempted a small smile. This woman was hard to gauge. She seemed to analyze everything. Not just him, but her surroundings. Maybe she was just acutely aware or self-conscious?

"The wolves were easy enough to out-wit," he murmured. "It's hard to catch an opponent you can't keep up with." He contemplated showing her his trick, but with four drinks in him already--he'd be lucky if he didn't teleport into a wall. He'd save it for later.

"You can relax, you know." Arien said. "You're fairly safe in a well-populated area like this."

"You speak the truth, I've yet to meet one that could..." She decided to use hs wording. "Keep up." Her fingers finally traveled to the bowl of peanuts she had eyed once or twice, she looked at the one she had aquired, running it around in her fingers.

Despite how superior she was, or thought herself anyway. She was much like a child seeing everything for the first time. "Relax?" She questioned, she knew what he meant but she hadn't done so in a while. " It is beneficial to be aware of ones surroundings." yeah she was pretty paranoid, but it had more to do with her recently being stabbed in the back by her own comrades. She had grown only a bit more comfortable with the primitive she was with. He had begun to prove himself as someone she didnt need to worry about. It was the other ones, cackling like mad some of them. She looked to him again, this time the look was a bit less analyzy though that was still there, it was now more of a person he was having a conversation with. She crossed her legs, and placed her hands in them. back still completely straight, she didn't look like she was in a very comfortable position but at this moment this was as close to relaxing as she could manage.

Arien shook his head with a grin. She might try to look relaxed but he could tell otherwise. Still, he wasn't going to nitpick because when he was traveling, he often didn't 'relax'. "Being observant is good, being uptight, not so much."

"You can eat those, you know," he told her, pointing at the peanuts. He reached for one, paused, and then concentrated hard enough that his eyes narrowed into slits. And then a peanut appeared in his palm. "Hah! It worked." He popped it into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. Teleporting peanuts; he needed to experiment more with his ability.